


Nothing is Ever Great

by BrownieSnivy



Category: The Good Place (TV), Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: M/M, Oneshot, Shrimpshipping, Shrimpshipping Week, theres an oc but hes an anteater so i dont know how to tag it'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 19:36:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17147840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrownieSnivy/pseuds/BrownieSnivy
Summary: All Michael has ever wanted was to innovate the afterlife by getting humans torture each other, but his first attempt starts to fall flat on its face when his victims start bonding. Written for ShrimpShipping Week 2018 Part 2.





	Nothing is Ever Great

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for clicking on my story, I really appreciate it! This one was written in about three days, so I'm sorry if it seems rushed... I poured almost all my time and effort into writing part two of Finally only to be unable to meet the deadline. That story will come out next year for ShrimpShipping Week and will likely by the way. Back on the topic of this fic, I started it as a passion project between two of my favorite properties and it was supposed to end up unfolding as a character study. However given certain circumstances involving lack of time and overloading myself with other ideas for fics I plan to publish in the future, it ended up in the state it is in right now as a thirty page short story. Either way, I hope it turned out at least half decent.

“Weevil.” Michael saw the blue-haired man abruptly turn his head to the direction of the voice. The architect could see fear and confusion mixed in his blue eyes and had to try as hard as possible to keep his faux friendly smile from twisting sadistically. “Come on in.”

Slowly, Weevil got up from his spot on the couch and cautiously followed the eternal being into his office. “Take a seat.” Michael gestured to a leather chair in front of his desk as he sat down in his own revolving chair. As soon as Weevil was properly situated, Michael began to pretend to explain the situation, “You must have a lot of questions.”

Weevil didn’t answer at first, opting instead to just look around the office and try to make heads or tails of his new environment for himself. Michael sighed, “I am so sorry for the confusion. You must be very scared.” Weevil looked back at the silver-haired infinitely older being, nodding reluctantly. “It is unfortunate, but there is no other way for us to things here in the afterlife.”

Michael relished seeing his victim’s eyes shrink to the size of one of the insects he knew he loved to study. “I’m… dead?” He croaked, clearly spooked. 

“You, Weevil Underwood, are dead.” The demon reiterated, “I reckon you don’t remember how you died then?”

“It’s… um…” Weevil looked down at his trembling hands with dread, “No. I… don’t remember at all.”

“We tend to erase the memory of souls who suffered particularly traumatic or embarrassing deaths. Though we can tell you if you are really sure you want to know.” Michael couldn’t help feel a bit disappointed when Weevil shook his head. “Very well. If you ever change your mind, just ask.”

“Are you going to torture me?” Weevil asked, his voice trembling with terror. 

Michael smiled warmly, delighting in the lie he was about to tell, “It isn’t the Christian concept of heaven or hell, but generally speaking, in the afterlife there is a Good Place and a Bad Place.” Tension crackled in between the two as Michael let that statement hang in the air for a few seconds. Finally after seeing a significant amount of apprehensive fear gather in his victim’s eyes, Michael performed the finishing blow, “You’re in the Good Place, Weevil.”

Weevil just blinked, clearly confused, “That’s…” He was contemplating whether to accuse the architect of lying or just try to lay low, Michael could tell. “Good.” Weevil finished, sighing in relief. At least, Michael knew that was the impression he was trying to give. Even with his limited understanding of human emotion the demon could tell he was still terrified out of his mind. 

“The work you did during your lifetime was absolutely remarkable.” Michael continued, “You single-handedly saved the lives of millions of families around the world with your charity work. Even if it meant you had to live in poverty… truly amazing!” Michael stared right into the depths of the insect enthusiast's baffled eyes, “You were a good person, Weevil.”

“Y-yeah.” Weevil stammered, trying to force a smile, “I mean… um… I’m honored! T-thank you for letting m-me stay in your afterlife, sir!”

Michael waved his hand dismissively, “No, no! It really is no problem at all! People like you deserve to get to stay in paradise.” The architect noticed Weevil twitch at that notion, but he pretended to be oblivious, “Most people in this world go to the Bad Place because there is a very steep point total goal to even have a chance to get in.” Michael explained, “Only one in a million humans make it here. So it’s no problem at all keeping you here.” 

“Well that’s…” Weevil trailed off, at a loss for words, “Is this real?”

Michael smiled, restraining the cruelty in his voice as he answered, “Yes, Weevil. This is as real as the life you lived on Earth, and this will be your reality for the rest of eternity.” Weevil just stared blankly at the man in front of him. Michael knew he wouldn’t be able to squeeze anymore conversation out of his victim as long as they stayed here, so he decided it was time to move on, “Allow me to show you around the neighborhood.” 

Michael was immensely satisfied with Weevil’s reaction to the neighborhood and the introductory video. Everything he showed the short man seemed to hit him with just as much dread as Michael had predicted. He could tell just how much this was making Weevil feel out of place and how much he hated seeing these people he thought were better and more deserving than him all around him; he could see how worried he was about being found out and how much he hated the idea of spending eternity with these goodie-two-shoes. It was just like Michael had hoped: everything was going according to plan.

It was finally time for Michael to show Weevil his home. The demon had been looking forward to this ever since he had drawn up this elaborate torture plan, but more then showing the entomophile the building he was excited to see his reaction to his “soulmate.” It was going to be priceless. 

“This is will be your house here in the afterlife.” Michael explained, gesturing to the large apartment building in front of them. “When I was designing this neighborhood, I figured it would be best if all the residence could live in close proximity to one another.” He explained, much to Weevil’s poorly disguised disgust, “Considering everyone here is so friendly, I thought it would be a nice treat. It makes the whole place feel so much more like a family, don’t you think?” The architect turned expectantly towards his victim, looking for a response. 

“Of course!” Weevil replied hastily, “That’s… great. Because I’m sure everyone here just… loves people.” The blue-haired male sighed, not doing well at all camouflaging his distaste. 

Michael lead the bug enthusiast into the blindingly bright lobby of the apartment building, showing him into the elevator with a grin. The ride up the elevator was short but enjoyable, considering Michael could tell his unfortunate companion really hated the overly happy and obnoxiously loud music playing over the speakers. Michael had wondered briefly if playing Pink Fluffy Unicorns Dancing on Rainbows on repeat would be too obvious of a torture method to possibly fly under the humans radar, but upon looking on how many views the video had on YouTube he figured he could get away with it, especially under the pretense that this was an afterlife full of overwhelmingly positive individuals. Though Michael reckoned that a person’s morality had nothing to do with their ability to enjoy an overly upbeat and repetitive tune, he was also more then certain that Weevil didn’t know enough about good people to realize that. 

When they arrived at their destination, Michael had to lead his victim all the way down the long hallway to his room. “Sorry for the long walk.” Michael pretended to apologize, “But I think you’ll find that the view from the windows certainly makes up for it!”

Michael opened the door into the living room, letting Weevil get an eyeful of the sight in front of him. Brightly colored paint covered every wall (save the one furthest from the door since it was just a very large window that didn’t even lead out into a balcony) which was only doubled in cheesiness by the paintings hanging all over of the apartment. They were simple colors like blue or red with white letters on them saying ridiculous inspirational bologna like “shoot for the moon to land amongst the stars” or “set a goal so big you can’t achieve it until you grow into the person who can” and the like. The furniture was all very fuzzy and soft, plushy to the point Michael couldn’t actually see where the cushions begun and the fur began. The carpet in the room was just as fluffy as the sofa and chairs, and the coffee table in the center looked like it might fall over with no solid support underneath it. The table had a bowl of rather realistic looking fake fruit in it, and Michael was delighted to see that there was a bite in it. The television was the biggest thing in the room, and it was currently playing some flashy human movie about dinosaurs, making the entire living room noisy with sounds of explosions. Weevil clearly hated everything about it, and it wasn’t even the only room in the house! 

“I had to consider everything about you when I was looking at your life to truly understand how to make your afterlife paradise the best it could possibly be.” The architect looked over at the human at his size for the negative reaction he craved, “I know how much you love that bright plush look, it’s just so inviting and it invokes a sort of feeling of childlike innocence.” Michael laughed, “Some might call it garish, but it just fills you with energy, doesn’t it?”

“Your so… thoughtful.” Weevil choked back in response.

“Well, I think I’m just about done showing you around!” Michael said, turning to leave before pretending to remember something important, “Oh! Silly me, I still haven’t introduced you to your soulmate!” 

“Soulmate?” Weevil echoed, looking even more flustered then before.

“He should be in the bedroom over there.” Michael gestured to a tacky red door on the left wall by the television. “Why don’t you go pay him a visit?”

Reluctantly, Weevil opened up the door into the bedroom. Michael was delighted to see his disgust upon seeing his afterlife partner asleep on the large queen-sized bed, wrapped up in layers and layers of polka dot blankets with an anteater plush held close to his chest. As soon as Weevil creaked the door open, all the lights in the room flickered on, clearly startling the man in the bed as he fell gracelessly onto the floor in shock.

“Hello, Rex.” Michael walked in beside Weevil, “Remember that soulmate I was telling you about?”

Rex looked really confused, “Who’re ya again?”

Michael had to suppress an annoyed sigh, electing to ignore his other victim’s stupidity, “Well, here he is! This is Weevil Underwood. He will be your companion here in the afterlife.”

That seemed to excite the brunet, “Sweet!” He shot up from the floor, shedding the blankets that still encased him to run over and give Weevil a big bear hug. “My name’s Rex Raptor! It’s totally dope to meet ya!”

Weevil stood there reeling in shock, but he managed to muster up a weak response, “Nice to meet you, too.” Michael smiled happily, glad to see that the dinosaur enthusiast’s speech patterns were enough to annoy his shorter victim. In this model even the smallest things would have to torture his victim and be subtle enough not to tip them off to his sinister motivation, so Michael had spent many long centuries pondering how he could get the formula just right. As he was seeing now, his tactics had so far been effective: even the little things about Weevil’s soulmate were driving him crazy, just as Michael had planned.

“Well, I guess I’ll just leave you two to it!” Michael chirped, turning back to the door and pretending to make his leave. Little did his two victims know he could keep a close eye on their every move in their apartment through little peepholes in the walls. 

As soon as they thought he was gone, Michael knew things would get a lot more interesting. The main idea of this entire experiment was to get these two humans to torture each other in what seemed like paradise knowing they didn’t belong there, so of course the best bits of the torture would be watching the two interact when they thought they were alone. They were systematically proven to hate each other, after all. 

Michael secretly observed as Rex let go of his soulmate, causing Weevil to flinch in alarm as he opted to flop over on the bed instead, almost kicking the blue-haired man in the motion. “So you must’ve been a pretty chill dude to get into the Good Place right?”

Weevil stuttered back in response, “Y-y-you would think that, right?”

Rex nodded, rolling across the bed like a little puppy, “What’d ya do to get in?”

“I-I don’t know exactly.” Weevil delicately skirted around the question, “I kind of feel like it wasn’t much, you know? Like maybe someone else… deserves it more than me.”

“Maybe ya got in for being so humble.” Rex sat up, looking his partner straight in the eye, “I mean, everyone here deserves to be here, right?”

There was a moment of silence as the two men just awkwardly stared at one another.

“Oh, who am I kidding?” Rex sighed defeatedly, suddenly sinking sadly into the mattress, “I’m gonna be completely honest with ya. I’m not supposed to be here. One of those eternal beings must’ve made a mistake or something.”

Weevil blinked in surprise, “R-really?”

“Yeah!” Rex moaned, rolling over to hide his face in one of the fluffy pillows on the bed, “When he said ‘You, Rex Raptor, are in the Good Place’ I didn’t really have a reason to think it was a mistake… until he said only the cream of the crop get in. Then I was like, ‘what?’ except I didn’t really say that cuz I was way too scared of getting shipped of to hell, ya know?” The brunet’s train of thought was amusingly derailing at this point, and Michael delighted in seeing his victim so helpless. “Gah, I’m so forked!” He touched his mouth awkwardly, “Forked. Forked! Why can’t I say forked?” He let out another pitiful groan and face planted into the pillow below, “Aaaaah, this place blows! But I guess I at least have a cute soulmate…” He moaned again, an even more miserable sound then the first several times, “No, that’s even worse! I’m just poisoning yer paradise with my presence, aren’t I?” 

“Well…” Weevil sat down on the bed beside the brunet, trying his best to stay calm, “That’s kind of a relief actually…”   


Rex turned to look at his partner, inquisitiveness burning in his eyes like the fire and brimstone of the real Bad Place, “Why’s that?”

“I-I’m not supposed to be here either.” Weevil collapsed on the bed next to his fake soulmate, “As soon as he told me I’d made it to the Good Place I knew there’d been some sort of mistake.”

“I’m sure ya weren’t that bad.” Rex tried to comfort his companion only to cause the smaller man to join him in stuffing his head in the overly plush pillows.

“I reheated fish in an office microwave.” Michael knew that Weevil was trying to start off small, but it was all the more satisfying for the demon with the knowledge that that act alone had guaranteed him a spot in the Bad Place. “I stole things off the lost and found table. I promised payment on things but then never gave them the money. I disrupted the connection when I started losing in a video game to force a tie. I threw some kid’s trading cards off a boat. I laughed whenever people fell down the stairs. I vagued people in posts.” He sighed heavily, “I sprayed insecticide in a child’s face!”

Rex just stared at his partner in shock, “Woah. Guess you really were that bad.”

“I know!” Weevil cried, his eyes now welling up with tears, “My entire life I just figured nothing mattered! I was a first-class nihilist! Learning that everything really does have tangible consequences… I wasted my life!” The bug enthusiast was now sobbing into the cushion, causing Michael to feel immensely satisfied. He really had created something special in this Bad Place neighborhood, he could feel it.

“Hey it’s gonna be aight, buddy!” Rex tried to put a comforting hand on his soulmate’s back, but the smaller man slapped it away with a growl.

“Don’t even bother!” Weevil cried out in self-pity, “I should literally be rotting in hell right now, nobody should ever have to look at me ever again!” He growled, “And don’t pronounce it ‘ _ aight _ ’! It’s ‘a **lr** ight,’ you heathen!”

“I should be rotting alongside ya!” Rex protested, “Come on, man! We’re two rejects in literal paradise! We should at least try to make the most of it. I bet most damned souls don’t get this privilege.”

“We’re going to get caught eventually.” Weevil groaned miserably, “We’ll be here for eternity, it’s only a matter of time before someone realizes we’re not exactly saints or martyrs.”

“I thought that kind of nihilism’s what got ya in this situation in the first place.” Rex tried to reason with his hopeless partner, though Michael presumed human reason was so lowly it was incorrect to even call it logic at all, “Glass half full from now on, got it? At least enjoy a little slice of heaven before we get hauled off to the Bad Place forever.”

“How am I supposed to enjoy literal paradise when our apartment is so unsightly?” The entomophile complained, “This place is hideous and tacky! I hate it!”

“Well, I think it’s charming!” Rex replied defensively, “Everything’s so adorable and soft!” He gestured to the basket of stuffed animals in the corner of the bedroom, “That’s where I got this little guy!” He pulled out the anteater plush from the mess of sheets still on the floor, “I named him Antslayer. Ya like?”

Weevil snatched the toy out of his partner’s hand and threw it at the wall, “No! It’s a stupid toy of a stupid animal!”

“What do you have against anteaters?” Rex pouted indignantly, getting up from the bed to pick up and stroke the toy’s fur as if it were really injured.

“I was an entomologist when I was alive.” Weevil explained, glaring at the toy being cradled in his soulmate’s arms, “Basically, I like bugs. And those creatures are heartless and homicidal to my precious insects!” 

“Bugs? Really?” Rex raised an eyebrow, “Whatever. Ya know, I was a biology scientist when I was alive, too. I was a paleontologist.”

“No wonder your so filthy.” Weevil’s childish face contorted in disgust, “Your entire job was digging in the dirt.”

“I know!” Rex responded chipperly, “Being dirty is awesome!”

Weevil made another repulsed grunt, “You’re such a nasty soulmate.”

 " Rude!” The former paleontologist responded with annoyance, “It’s not my fault we’re stuck together! Wait, actually it kinda is… guess it wouldn’t have happened if we’d been better people, huh?”

“I don’t want to hear another word from you so long as we stay here!” Weevil barked back, “You say we should enjoy our time here? Then I say we spend as much time away from one another as humanly possible!”

“See that might be kind of difficult.” Rex told his partner awkwardly, “Because Michael told me the entire neighborhood is getting together to play the Newlywed Game tonight.” 

“You’ve got to be forking kidding me.” Weevil snarled before disappointment set in on his face realizing he couldn’t curse.

“So it’s not just me!” Rex laughed, “Nice!”

“It is not nice, you ashhole!” Weevil snapped before growling again in rage, much to Rex’s amusement. 

As the two continued to argue, Michael figured it was best for him to leave and go brief his subordinate demons on how they were to act during the Newlywed Game debacle he had planned for later tonight. The architect went over to the room next door, knocking on it to alert the two demons inside to watch after Rex and Weevil and keep him posted on their levels of unhappiness, then it was off to his office.

“Alright then.” Michael said, clapping the hands of his human vessel together to get the other demon’s attention, “Tonight we’re going to torture the humans with some Newlywed Game icebreakers. It’s going to be hilarious!” The entire room laughed just thinking about the ensuing torture, “The plan is that Vicky and Marshall will completely blow those two idiots out of the water with how much they know about each other’s arbitrary interests and for Weevil to have a complete anxiety attack. They’ll be so worried about getting their cover blown they’ll end up calling it quits and going home, and then the next morning we can guilt trip them even more by inviting them to an apology dinner!”

“What if they don’t end up going home?” Glenn asked from the crowd.

“Then they can just stick around and be miserable for longer.” Michael said with a shrug, “This plan is airtight, I promise you. I’ve thought of every possible outcome.”

Soon it was time for the architects to start preparing the Newlywed Game stage and setup for the torture, and the two architects from earlier had showed up to give Michael the low down on the human’s situation. “They’re actually trying to study up on each other!” Patricia cackled, “They think they might have a chance!”

“I don’t see why we can’t just twist their necks.” Chris pouted for about the millionth time, “What’s wrong with good old fashioned neck snapping?”

“I already told you, Chris!” Michael snapped at his underling, “It’s the same thing, over and over and over… there’s no spice to it! I am trying to revolutionize the way demons torture souls over here! Could you try for two seconds to go along with your boss’s plans and not be so disagreeable?”

Though still clearly miffed, Chris decided to keep his mouth shut for the rest of the conversation, letting Patricia take over in telling Michael about the humans, “They’re discussing favorite songs and movies and the like… I kind of don’t think they’ve actually watched the Newlywed Game.”

Michael couldn’t help but chuckle diabolically, “Perfect. Not only will they fail, but they’ll fail after putting effort into the whole thing and having been forced to spend time together.”

The event was all set up within a matter of about an hour, and Michael was delighted to see Rex and Weevil standing around awkwardly by the buffet trying to look happy before turning to snark at each other. Michael pulled Bambadjan aside after a few minutes, not satisfied with the amount of discomfort his victims were currently experiencing, “Hey, do you think you and Nancy could go over there and try to spice things up a bit? Things are getting awful boring over here…”

Michael discreetly hid in a corner to overhear as Bambadjan and Nancy made their way over to the humans, smiling artificially as they approached their unsuspecting victims, “Well, if it isn’t Rex and Weevil!” Nancy cooed sweetly, “We’ve heard so much about you!”

“Have you now?” Weevil shuffled nervously beside his partner, tension crackling like classic Bad Place lightning between the two couples.

Bambadjan turned to Rex, “Is it true that you were a civil rights activist all across Asia?”

“I suppose you could say that.” Rex answered awkwardly.

The architect in hiding laughed, “I was an activist, too! In my home country, many minority groups were unjustly persecuted.”

Rex shook his head, “It’s just horrible, isn’t it? For people who are already marginalized to be treated that way.”

“That’s why it’s great that there are people like you in the world.” Bambadjan said sweetly, laying the guilt on thick, “We’re just so lucky, aren’t we?”

“Yep.” Rex responded quickly, laughing forcibly “Real lucky! I mean, not to sound egotistical or anything!”

“Oh, it’s no problem!” Nancy insisted, “Your in the Good Place now, after all. What’s the worst that could happen?” On that foreboding note, the couple left Rex and Weevil’s company having caused significant damage to their moral. Michael was already quite entertained, but their conversation afterwards really sealed the deal for the demon.

“Fan-forking-tastic!” Weevil snarled, “I can’t believe you!”

“Hey, it wasn’t a complete lie!” Rex protested, “I had a pride bumper sticker on my car, ya know!”

“Not that!” Weevil snapped back, agitation seeming to spread from his cheeks to the tips of his fingers, “Look what you’ve done!” The entomologist pointed down at his soulmates sleeves, which were stained with chocolate, “I told you not to stick your grimy paws into the chocolate fountain!”

“It was just my fingers!” Rex cried defensively, “Well, at first… I mean, it’s not like I meant to!” 

Weevil clearly wasn’t going to let the act’s accidental nature get in the way of him chastising his afterlife partner, “Street punks like you are always eager to get their disgusting hands dirty, aren’t they?”

On that particularly scathing note, Michael was ready to depart his victim’s company and get the game rolling down to torture town. “Attention!” The demon architect leapt onto the stage with a microphone in hand, eagerly announcing the  _ fun _ activity in store for his  _ delightful _ humans, “I’m sure you’re all aware of how this game works?” A resounding agreement from the crowd meant Michael could plow forward and get straight to torture, “Wonderful! Firstly, let’s have Vicky and Marshal take the stage!” The two demons waved to the cheering crowd as they took a spot in the tacky booths Michael had set up on stage in front of the whole neighborhood, “Vicky was a death row lawyer in Romania while Marshall served as a brain surgeon, both saving hundreds of human lives during their lifetimes! Truly a power couple not to be messed with!”

Michael could see Rex and Weevil squirming in place and knew he just had to strike his prey then and there, “And next give a warm welcome to Rex and Weevil, a selfless philanthropist and a revolutionary civil rights activist! They’ll certainly pack a punch together!” Slowly, the two fake soulmates shuffled onto the stage to settle into the chairs prepared for them on Michael’s left. Rex had already picked up the whiteboard and was beginning to doodle pictures of dinosaurs holding hands, and Michael could almost see the strained self-control Weevil was having to employ not to slap the marker out of his hands.

“Let’s jump right into it, shall we?” Michael loved slow and painful torture as much as the next demon, but there was an appeal to cutthroat brutality as well, and Michael was going to have fun experimenting with different styles on these two humans. He cleared his throat before asking the first question, “We’ll start off easy. How many siblings does your special lady have?” Michael turned sympathetically to the humans to his left, “Sorry if this offends you, but that’s going to be Weevil in this simulation, if that’s quite alright.”

“No problem.” Weevil said through gritted teeth as his pale face shone hot pink with embarrassment. Michael knew humiliation would be one of his greatest weapons in this elaborate torture simulation, he had studied humans for a long time and learned they tend to remember embarrassing moments more than any of their other emotions. He couldn’t place his finger on what evolutionary benefit this served, so he had ultimately come to the conclusion it was just another stupid flaw in humankind’s laughably poor design. 

After Marshall and Rex finished writing their answers, Michael gestured for the demon in disguise to flip his board to face the crowd. “Two siblings, you say?” Michael turned to Vicky, “What did you write down?” The female demon revealed the number two on her board, just as rehearsed. Michael smiled with glee, “Wow! You two sure do know each other well! That’s one point for Vicky and Marshall!” A screen attached to the booths glowed sporadically in victory before finally clearly showing the number one.

Next was the fun part. Michael turned to the humans, eager to watch them fail when put under the most basic questioning. He knew no two humans as socially inept as them could possibly learn much about each other in a few short hours, and he was prepared to delight in their failure as long as possible. “What did you write down, Rex?” The brunet turned his board around to reveal the number one written barely legibly on the whiteboard. “And you, Weevil?”

Michael already knew the answer, but seeing the zero written down right in front of him made his victory so much sweeter.

“I thought you said you had a sister!” Rex muttered to his companion beside him, too low for a far away human to hear but just loud enough for the demon to pick up on. Human bodies were so ill suited even for their limited lifespan, Michael wondered how so many of them managed to survive past childhood. It was a mystery for sure, but not one Michael particularly cared to explore. Afterall, their fragile bodies were so much easier to torture that way.

“She was an Internet sister!” The former entomologist quietly snapped back, “We never even met up in real life, and we feel out of touch nearly five years ago!”

Rex huffed in annoyance, “Well excuse me!”

"Next question!” Michael briskly hurried the humans along, eager to cause more stress among them as the night progressed, “What is your special guy’s middle name?”

The night proceeded on as planned, with Rex and Weevil failing every question and Vicky and Marshall absolutely killing it. Watching the two bite each other’s heads off was so entertaining that Michael lost track of the time, idly entertaining his crowd of demons with progressively more impossible questions as he heaped anxiety and humiliation onto the two men for the sake of his own pleasure. Michael was disappointed to see he had gotten to the last question in what seemed like no time as all, but he supposed all evil things must come to an end, “What was the last TV show your special lady binge watched?” Michael asked, smiling corruptly as Rex frantically scribbled down an answer on the dry erase board. 

Marshall revealed the answer to be Riverdale, which Vicky of course confirmed to be correct, sending their score to a perfect twenty-five. “A perfect score!” Michael pretended to be shocked, “Vicky and Marshall are on fire! Now let’s go back to Rex and Weevil.”

Rex looked at Weevil nervously, but the blue-haired biologist was too busy angrily muttering under his breath to really notice, “What the fork is a Good Place resident doing watching a shirt show like  **Riverdale** ?” 

Rex turned his board around to show his answer to be The Disastrous Life of Saiki K, which Michael remembered in his nearly infinite knowledge was some sort of comedy anime. The architect had never watched it of course, Bad Place demons only watched problematic shows like the Bachelor or of course Riverdale. The lavender banged male looked anxiously at his companion, who turned his board around to show the same thing written down. Both of the humans looked just as surprised as the demons at the development. 

“H-how did you know that?” Weevil muttered to his friend, for the first time that night showing some sort of appreciation for his soulmate and sending Michael’s good spirits down the toilet.

Rex shrugged nonchalantly, “Just a guess. Well, not completely, I guess. Ya did compare me to one of the characters earlier when I managed to forget that robot enby’s name.”

“Janet?” Weevil asked, causing the neighborhood assistant to appear behind the short man and scare the living daylights out of both humans.

“Hello!” The not-lady responded chipperly, tilting her head to show her eagerness, “How can I help you?”

“Fork off!” Weevil snapped under his breath, looking desperately at the confused crowd who had, much to his dismay, definitely noticed his predicament.

“Okay!” In a second Janet was gone, leaving no traces of ever having been there in the first place.

Michael tried his best not to show his disappointment as his perfect score was broken, trying to focus instead on all his collective victories throughout the night and even the little Janet embarrassment a few seconds before, but the entire thing just felt like salt in the wound. This experiment was supposed to be airtight… what would happen if he couldn’t predict everything?  

Weevil was seemingly still impressed with Rex’s ability to guess the answer to Michael's question, “How did you know that was the show he was from?”

“Cuz I’ve seen it.” Rex answered simply, “It’s real good, and Nendo was one of my favorite characters.” 

“Of course.” The entomologist snorted, “An idiot like you would enjoy his character, it’s clear to me now.” Rex jabbed his elbow into Weevil’s stomach after that teasing remark, but much to Michael’s dismay it wasn’t a mean spirited gesture at all but rather a  _ playful  _ one. Both men giggled as they continued to slap at each other like petty little children. 

This was  **not** supposed to happen.

“Well, I guess that wraps up tonight’s first game!” Michael clapped his hands together, trying not to seem bitter, “The winners are Vicky and Marshall! Congratulations, you two!” 

As the entire crowd erupted in applause, Michael shot a glance at the once again thoroughly dejected Rex and Weevil and tried to find pleasure in it, but his sadistic enjoyment of the scene were curbed to a dull and passive satisfaction under the weight of his failure. He walked over to his human victims, finding it even harder to muster a convincing smile then usual, “I am so sorry that you two weren’t prepared for the game. I hope we didn’t cause you too much embarrassment.”

“It was nothing!” Rex lied, trying to reassure the infinite being before him, “Everyone here is such a good person we don’t really gotta worry about anyone judging us. And we got a chance to discover a few shared interests with each other, ya know?”

Even if he knew Rex was trying to put a pleasant façade over a miserable situation, the truth of his statement made it hard for Michael not to twist his face in disgust, “I figured a civil rights activist would feel that way.” Michael responded with repressed anger, “In that case, maybe you’d like to stick around and watch a few more rounds?” 

Weevil shook his head quickly, “No no no! I mean…” The bug enthusiast tried to find the a realistic excuse for skipping the festivities that still made him sound like a good person, “It would be nice if perhaps it wasn’t so late, but the two of us sure are tired after all that. Isn’t that right?” 

The blue-haired man turned to his fake soulmate expectantly and was met with a nod of agreement, “Yep! We’re real tired, Mike! You don’t mind letting us go on home, do ya?”

“Of course not!” Michael replied, “This is the Good Place, after all! Nobody should have to do anything that makes them feel any less than exceptional! You two go on home!” 

As soon as the two humans were out of sight, Michael was immediately swarmed by his subordinates. “Airtight plan, isn’t that what you said?” He heard Chris bark, “That didn’t look so foolproof to me!”

“Oh, come on!” Michael groaned in frustration, “It was one little loophole! They’re still deeply miserable!” Even as he said that, he still couldn’t help but beat himself up over his mistake. He was mad a t himself, he was mad at the humans, he was mad at his employees… he couldn’t believe even a minor mistake like this could happen in a design he had created himself after centuries of slaving over it’s perfect completion. It felt horrible, this nagging sense of failure… he wondered how humans managed to live with lifetimes chock full of this feeling. But as much as he hated himself for letting himself slip up, he knew he’d hate having every molecule of his essence boiled and served up with a flaming ladle even more, so he knew for his own sake that he’d have to pretend to have everything under control for the time being.

“If you could make one little mistake on the first day then what’s next?” Vicky criticized her higher-up ruthlessly, “Next thing you know they’ll figure out they’re actually in the Bad Place and Shawn will have us all retired!”

“Come on now, Vicky! Don’t jump the gun like that!” Michael tried to soothe the worries of the demon. He needed his employees to cooperate if he was to succeed in torturing these two humans for a thousand years, and if they were all talking about going back to their office jobs in Bad Place HQ that would never happen and he’d be retired by Shawn for sure. That could not happen, no matter what the cost. “We can afford to make a few more little slip ups like this as long as they aren’t too severe or frequent. The ultimate goal is that Rex and Weevil stay unhappy, and as long as we do that for a thousand years we’re in no danger of being retired. So just hold your horses and sit back. Everything is great.”

Though he could tell very few of his fellow architects were actually convinced, he was content with the fact they weren’t arguing with him anymore. He slunk away from his demon crew to go check on the humans as scheduled, and soon he was peeking in on two rather annoyed men arguing in the living room.

“I don’t care!” Weevil groaned, putting an arm over his face to hide himself in shame, “That was still the most embarrassing event I’ve ever had the misfortune of partaking in!” 

Rex sighed, rolling over off the couch onto the equally plush rug below, “At least we got one question right.”

For the first time since he’d gotten to the afterlife, Weevil stopped complaining, “I’m surprised you remembered that. It was just a throwaway comment.”

The former paleontologist shrugged, “I was supposed to pay attention to ya, I mean that was the entire point.”

“Still, I’m a bit shocked.” Weevil said as he rolled his head over to meet his partner’s eyes. Michael felt dreadful seeing the genuine gratitude in his blue gaze, “Thanks, I guess.”

Rex perked up from the floor, “Hey, I just realized something!” He got up from the ground and put his hands on his fake soulmate’s shoulders, “Yer looking at the glass as half full!”

“What?” Weevil blinked in confusion.

“If ya were looking at this as half empty ya’d just focus on our failure! But you just thanked me for a little thing, so yer not being completely pessimistic!” He smiled at the slightly younger man, “I mean, ya still gotta long way to go, but yer taking baby steps!”

“Oh, hush!” Weevil snapped, cheeks lighting up in embarrassment, “I’m not lame like that! Leave me alone!” 

Rex elected to do the opposite, pulling Weevil into a warm embrace and causing the entomologist to blush even more furiously, “Maybe we’ll get along better than we thought.”

Weevil shoved his afterlife companion back with what looked like all his force, Michael knew that the biologist was remarkably weak even by human standards and that it likely took all of energy to push even someone as pitiful as Rex away, “Get away from me, you cur! I said that I want nothing to do with you!” Weevil began to haughtily walk towards the bedroom away from his partner, muttering censored curses under his breath. The measures Michael had taken against profanity were by far one of his favorite ideas to torture the humans, he knew very well from looking at their personal records they had mouths like sailors, and taking away their ability to properly vent their frustrations through colorful language was like a punch to their dirty lips. Michael would have found Weevil’s vain attempts to curse hysterical if he wasn’t so repulsed by their current course of action. 

The brunet continued to grin cheekily, “If that’s really what ya want, buddy. But I was thinking of watching some Aggretsuko out here and thought ya might want to join me…” The dinosaur enthusiast smiled as Weevil paused in the doorframe, “I’d just need that fancy Alexa to show me how to work the TV and we’d be all set.”

Weevil reluctantly stormed back over to the sofa and plopped himself down on it’s overly plush cushions beside his fake soulmate, and Rex clapped his hands together with an eager chuckle. The shorter biologist snorted indignantly, “Her name is Janet. Get it right, Nendo!” 

Rex gave the man a playful noogie before summoning the magical assistant, “Janet?”

Michael groaned in frustration and disgust, stomping away from his private peephole and slamming the door behind him as he entered his office. There was going to be a major problem in this simulation if they weren’t constantly tortured by one another’s existence, and perhaps an even bigger issue if actually managed to teach each other a thing or two about being decent people. He moaned defeatedly and sunk his face into his hands. This was going to be a long thousand years.

A fter the little hiccup on the first day, most of the demon’s torturous schemes for the following week appeared to have been relatively successful. The Bad Place crew had all come to Rex and Weevil’s door the following day offering small consolation prizes after the human’s miserable defeat the night before, adding insult to injury to an already open wound before laying it on thick by inviting them to the opening of yet another unnecessary and subconsciously disappointing frozen yogurt shop. Fro Yo Information’s first day proved to be massively rewarding for Michael, watching Rex steal spoonfuls of yogurt from nearby tables when he figured the other residents weren’t watching while Weevil tried his best not to be rude to the service workers for fear of being caught acting less than ideally was about as hilarious as it could possibly get for a demon.

Next Michael decided to test out a slow burn tactic based on one of the most fascinating and widely used forms of human torture, that of course being final exams. Michael had told the entire neighborhood that the testing was to determine what sort of opportunities the residents would be receiving for the rest of eternity and had assured them it was merely a personality exam, which for Rex and Weevil meant they had to study up and figure out what kinds of things their saintly false identities would write in regards to hobbies and character traits. The pair essentially had to create an entire person from their own imagination and answer the test questions with enough internal consistency so not to tip Michael off that they didn’t belong there, all the while answering the questions in such a way that they were almost guaranteed not to get to do any of the activities they actually enjoyed. Of course the tests themselves were long and boring with long and stressful stretches of time in between taking the test and learning your grade, and obviously Michael had stared the humans down the entire time to make sure they weren’t cheating. If Michael was being completely honest he didn’t have to change very much from the human model, and he was pleasantly surprised with how well the mortal teachers had perfected the art if stressing their students out by simply waving a number and a letter in their student’s faces. Michael couldn’t help but wonder how stupid humans must be to willingly send their kids of to what were basically prisons masquerading as educational facilities, but he was nevertheless grateful towards the mortals for once for offering him such fantastic inspiration. 

The day after the testing was the best yet. Michael had enlisted Luang and Quinston to organize an outdoor theater movie night outside the neighborhood's immediate and more developed areas, and he had to say it was one of his best ideas yet. Rex had been thoroughly baffled by the gathering and had argued there was no need to go outside when they could watch whatever they wanted on their television sets at home, and he had become even more confused by the demon’s excuses that it was a ‘neighborhood bonding opportunity’ and a ‘unique experience away from the rat race of the city.’ The dinosaur enthusiast had also been extremely disappointed to find the only available option for popcorn flavors was vanilla, and had spent a lot of time not-so silently pondering how anyone could possibly think to exclude caramel and jalapeno cheese. Weevil on the other hand had mostly just hated the assortment of superhero movies they had binged that night. The trick was that Michael couldn’t have it so every movie they were watching was horrendous or else one of the humans might catch on, but he also needed an excuse to sprinkle in several stinkers throughout the good movies. One moment you’d be watching Winter Soldier or Wonder Woman and then suddenly it was Batman v Superman or Suicide Squad. This torturous experience was elevated by the fact everyone was watching the movies out of order, and each of the neighbors would have to vote on the next film to watch, since after all they didn’t have time to watch all of them and residents of the Good Place shouldn’t have to watch movies they weren’t interested in seeing. Obviously this meant that the stories didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and the demons exploited this by asking questions to try to figure out what was going on and chattering throughout the whole thing. With this tactic, Michael make even watching the good movies aggravating for his victims. All of this was of course amazing for Michael, but watching the destress on Weevil’s face when he was told there were no insects in the Good Place because ‘it's a paradise without any disgusting pests’ was the most satisfaction the demon had ever felt in his eternal life. Invisible hair scorpions were all well and good, but there was a unique and special gratification in the experience he had cooked up. 

Michael figured he would have been able to properly enjoy it if Rex and Weevil weren’t taking the time to actually bond with each other. 

The architect paced around his office with his hands behind his back, deep in thought. The last two days had seemed to go without a hitch in the eyes of the other architects, they were all feeling delightfully devilish in their apartments right now and scheming for the next scenario they had planned for their human neighbors, but for Michael that was always the height of the torturous alley-oop: his mood would go up and up and up watching the pair squirm to the point where he almost forgot about everything... before it came crashing down along with the realization nothing was going as planned. 

It was Michael’s job as the puppet master of this entire operation to check how the humans were doing after a long day of torment, and what he had found the last two days was enough to make him want to unleash the acid lions of the real Bad Place on them and forget all about his innovated plans for the afterlife. 

After the grand opening of Fro Yo Information, Weevil had stormed into their apartment over to the huge window taking up the farthest wall and growled angrily at the sights below, “Why are there so many forking frozen yogurt places around here?!”

“I don’t mind.” Rex admitted, still holding a cup he’d taken off someone’s table before they’d left the premises entirely, “I rather like frozen yogurt, to be completely honest.”

“That explains why you keep stealing it!” Weevil hissed, “Seriously, what were you thinking?! If anyone had seen that we would have been toast!”

Rex lifted a spoonful of the dessert to his lips and said with a full mouth, “But nobody did, so it’s chill.” 

“Your missing the point!” Weevil growled, pulling at his hair in frustration, “We can’t afford to act that way around here!”

“Well then I’d appreciate if ya’d stop yelling at me.” Rex huffed poutily, “Don’t scold me about acting decent when all ya do if complain and beat me down.”

The blue-haired male twitched, “I meant in public, you dingus!” 

Rex sighed, “Ya know, I’m thinking that if we’re gonna get along that we should treat each other with some respect.”

“Why should I?” Weevil crossed his arms like a petty child, “You are beneath me! If I wasn’t being forced to spend time with you, I would be out the door in no time at all!”

“Now who’s missing the point?” Rex teased with a smile as Weevil flinched, “We’ve gotta stick this out together, and acting like a baby isn’t going to get us anywhere.” The bug enthusiast opened his mouth to object, but Rex had put his finger over his mouth to shush him, “So try not to throw a temper tantrum every time something doesn't go yer way, got it?” 

Weevil blinked a few times in the awkward seconds of silence, “F-f-fine.” The shorter guy said after a bit, “I’ll stop complaining about absolutely everything if you stop tucking me in.”

“What?” Rex’s cheeks lit up bright red in embarrassment, “When did I do that?”

“You always steal all the blankets on the bed while your asleep and leave me all cold.” Weevil’s tone sounded like he was complaining, but the smile he had adorned on his face betrayed his intentions to tease his partner, “You think I don’t notice your blanket stealing shenanigans because you think I’m already knocked out, but I most certainly do!” Rex put his hand into his hair and chuckled awkwardly as Weevil continued, “And when you wake up in the morning you always tuck the blankets back in over me so I don’t wake up and get mad.”

“If ya knew I was stealing the covers all along, why didn’t ya talk my ear off about it?” Rex asked as Weevil let out an indignant snort.

“I’m not irritable about everything, dumbash!” The bug biologist said as an excuse, “As long as you stop doing it from now on you’ll be spared of my wrath!”

“Ya said to stop tucking ya in, but can I still steal the blankets?” Rex asked eagerly, but his goofy smile was quickly replaced with a shocked expression as Weevil threw one of the plushy pillows on the couch into his soulmate’s face.

Weevil threw another cushion at Rex, this one nearly knocking the taller man over, “No! I demand blanket equality!” Before Rex could hurl one back at his partner, Weevil had sent yet another pillow crashing into the brunet’s face, “You were a civil rights activist, weren’t you? Why aren’t you fighting for my inalienable rights to fair blanket payment?”

Now that Weevil had thrown all three of the plushy pillows at Rex, that meant he was out of ammo while Rex had a full supply sitting right by his feet. The paleontologist smiled eagerly, “I don’t know what that word means, so I don’t think I’m qualified to do any fighting.”

Weevil could never resist an opportunity to explain a word, since it made him look highly learned while the other party got to feel like a total idiot. Weevil’s tendency to seek situations whenever possible was one of the reason’s Michael had paired him up with Rex in the first place, “Inalienable is an adjective meaning unable to be taken or given aw-” The entomophile’s rant was cut off by Rex throwing a two cushions into his face simultaneously before swinging the third like a baseball bat and toppled his partner over onto the soft carpet below. 

Rex snickered, “What was that ya were saying?”

Michael hadn’t stuck around to witness the rest of their childish pillow fight, because he was much to infuriated to bare even a second more of it. It felt like the humans were flipping his torture plan on its head and tormenting him instead, and it was driving him to complete madness. 

The testing scenario had proven to be even more of a train wreck, much to Michael’s agitation. He had predicted that spending an entire day studying up for a rigorous test that would decide the entirety of their experiences in the afterlife would be stressful enough that they’d both snap at some point, but somehow it seemed the two had managed to salvage at least a scrap of genuine enjoyment from the opportunity. 

Both boys were sitting on opposite sides of the sofa, furiously scribbling away on the notebooks Janet had provided them, and after a suitable amount of time had passed they had decided it was time for them to discuss their ideas. 

“I’ll go first.” Rex said eagerly as he clearing his throat, “This is going to sound crazy, but hear me out.” Weevil opened his mouth to object, but it was already too late to stop his fake soulmate from finishing his thought, “What if I did professional curling as a side job?”

Weevil slapped his hand over his face and sighed heavily, “How do you expect to convince people you were a civil rights activist who traveled all across Asia and a professional curling champion at the same time?”

“What if I was an MMA fighter instead?” Rex suggested, clearly missing the point. Michael never ceased to be amazed at humankind’s ability to completely misunderstand even the most clearly stated observations, but even when compared to the other idiotic mortals the demon had tortured Rex was a special case. Michael knew when he’d chosen him as his second victim he was going to be in for a treat. 

“That’s even worse!” Weevil shouted exasperatedly, “What kind of Good Place resident fights in the MMA?” 

Rex adorned a pouty lip on his face, “Well then what did ya write down, smart ash?”

“I actually took into account my alter ego’s backstory.” Weevil boasted as he wiped the eraser marks of his paper, “I figured that since he was a philanthropist he must have had a lot of money at some point to kick his career off, even if he did have to live in poverty for most of his  life after he gave it all away. I wrote down classy things like croquet and dressage.” 

Rex raised an eyebrow, “What the fork is dressage? No way ya can use that one, I bet Janet won’t even know what it is.” 

“It’s the highest expression of horse riding and training, you urchin!” Weevil answered, crossing his arms accusingly. Michael couldn’t help but laugh upon hearing the indignation in the small boy’s voice. The way that Weevil acted above everyone else when he was in a neighborhood full of eternal beings that could skin him like a cat with the flip of their wrists was always hilarious to Michael, but it was more amusing now then ever when the architect began to consider how you could turn glorified horse dancing into a typical Bad Place torture ritual.  “Everybody knows that!”

Rex snorted, “I’m not convinced ya aren’t some sort of rich snob yerself.”

“I grew up with a lot of money.” Weevil replied, “Maybe I should just borrow some of my old hobbies from my real lifetime for this philanthropist identity.”

“Let me guess, ya were rocking the corsage community before ya were even old enough to walk.” Rex teased. 

“ _ Dress _ age.” Weevil playfully stuck his tongue out at the older man before continuing, “And no, I never had any sort of equestrian education.”

“Ya know yer short enough to be a jockey.” Rex teased impishly, only to subsequently receive a swift punch to the ribs from his nearby partner.

Weevil narrowed his eyes at his partner before finally finishing his thought, “I played piano and violin. I was rather proficient, too.”

Rex tilted his head as if he were deep in thought, “Violins are those screechy lap guitars ya play with a stick, right?” 

“That’s a cello.” Weevil informed his less learned partner, “Violins are the screechy  **chin** guitars that you play with a stick.” Rex made a small gasp of realization before Weevil continued, “I kid of course. A guitar and a violin are worlds apart. And what you call as ‘stick’ is what we in the musical community call a ‘bow.’”

“Woah, I’m becoming so smart.” Rex’s eyes gleamed eagerly as if he were hungry to listen to Weevil talk more, “I’m going to ace this test thanks to ya!”

“It’s a personality exam.” Weevil pointed out, “It doesn’t really matter if your a quick-witted mastermind like me or a prosaic simpleton like you.” 

Rex elbowed his fake soulmate and complained, “Now yer just showing off! But seriously, yer saying some interesting stuff. Hit me with yer most obscure nerd trivia, I wanna know some more.” 

“Firstly, knowing the difference between a violin and a cello isn’t trivia. Secondly, I will gladly continue talking. It's not very often anyone listens to what I have to say and I’m grateful that you asked.” Michael knew this whole song and dance of Weevil’s from observing his file: Weevil always pointed things out in in sets of three if one of the observations was going to be something that wasn’t scathing. The trick was to put the agreeable statement amongst two critical ones and hope that’s enough for the more pleasant one to fly over the listeners head. The third remark was just as expected, “Thirdly, if this were a knowledge based test you would have failed so miserably that they would have sent you back three grades.” 

The rest of the night wasted away as the two completely forgot what they were supposed to be studying for, and by the time they’d both passed out next to each other on the couch their conversation had drifted away from miscellaneous facts all the way to whether or not Venom was a good movie. The pair had woken up sleep-deprived in the morning only to have to rush over to the testing sights underprepared and distracted by inside jokes they had formed the previous night, and for the next few days of testing they kept repeating the cycle of shirking their studying duties and doing some sort of sleepover activity like taking shots and playing truth or dare. By the end of the testing period it didn’t even seem like the two were torturing each other at all, and that was quite frankly the most horrifying development that could possibly take root and infect this experiment. 

The demon’s latest attempt hadn’t been much better. When Rex and Weevil had gotten home after the hours of watching superhero films, the first thing they did was plop beside one another on the large queen sized mattress in their bedroom.

“They talked through the entire thing…!” Weevil groaned, “Maybe if they’d just listened to the movie they could have put some pieces together but no…!”

Rex shared a similar sentiment, “It seemed like not one of those jabrones had ever seen a Marvel movie in their lives. How is that even possible?” One of the most infuriating things about their new friendship to Michael was there ability to complain about the same things. It was almost as if they were soaking up the other one’s misery just by being there, which was the complete opposite of their shared presence intended purpose. 

“I guess they were too busy being goody-two shoes while they were alive to go out and watch them.” Weevil rolled over to faceplant into the pillows, “Forking losers.”

Rex chuckled, “They’re the people we should’ve been, ya know.” Even as he said that he couldn’t help but snort, “Even if being good means being a total buzzkill.”

“I know… everyone here sucks so hard!” Weevil groaned miserably, “We’re seriously the only cool people in the entire neighborhood.”

“Ya think I’m cool?” Rex’s question positively glowed with warmth and gratitude, thoroughly touched by his partner’s words, “Nobodies ever said that about me before.”

Weevil stuttered as he began to try to take back his mistake, “T-that’s because you aren’t!” He continued to huff, but it didn’t seem that any of his retracting statements did a thing to make Rex any less overjoyed then before, “You’re just more tolerable than any of the other residents.” Another annoying development in the men’s relationship was that whenever Weevil said something insensitive Rex didn’t take it seriously anymore. It was impossible for Michael to weaponize how cruel Weevil’s words could be when Rex sat secure in the knowledge they’d always end up on the same side.The shorter man shifted his eyes to the side, “Besides, it’s like you said the other day. We’ve got to tough this out together because you’re all I’ve got.” 

“Make up yer mind!” Rex teased, lifting out a hand to squeeze Weevil’s cheeks as if he were a little toddler, “Do ya want me to like ya or not?” 

“I want you to go to sleep!” Weevil bit back sharply, “We just stayed up for almost twenty-four hours trying to watch movies after three nights of studying!” Both men giggled at his inaccurate use of the term ‘studying’ before weevil got back to being serious, “We should get some rest. No doubt these idiots will have some other  _ fun  _ activity planned for tomorrow.”

Rex sighed, “Alright, fine.” The brunet smiled as they both turned opposite sides of the bed so their backs faced each other, “Love ya.”

Weevil shut his eyes tighter and pretended not to hear his soulmate, which only made Rex giggle even more. 

Looking back on the past few nights was making Michael more and more determined not to let any possible joy come from his next scheme. He needed to make it so miserable that at the end of the day the two men would have nothing to snicker about, but not so obviously torture that they’d figure out they were in the Bad Place. Thinking of torment that didn’t include flying snakes and penis flatteners was difficult, but Michael considered himself a crafty architect. He wasn’t going to allow himself to lose to two trash bag humans. 

After a long night of pondering, Michael had finally come up with a suitably horrible stunt to subject his victims to, one that could possibly end their entire friendship in one fell swoop and get the neighborhood experiment right back on track. He called all the other architects to the square to brief them on the plan, careful to make sure none of his employees would goof up his meticulously thought out scheme, before he took to the human’s apartment himself to put the plan into action. 

Michael knocked on the door and was soon greeted by Rex, who was sporting an anime protagonist-esqu bedhead and clutching the stuffed anteater toy Weevil had thrown across the room a few nights ago. The brunet rubbed his eyes groggily, “Mike?” Rex asked uncertainty, “What are ya doing here?”

Michael could look right over the short dino lover’s head and see that Weevil was reading a thick book on the sofa, “I’ve been observing you and your soulmate very closely.” Michael began, sounding rather ominous as he continued, “I have to say, I wasn’t expecting anything like this from you.” 

Rex was clearly falling for his fake intimidation tactic: his eyes were the size of the eye of a needle and the color had almost completely draining from his face, “Yeah?” The brunet croaked awkwardly.

“I’m just so glad the two of you get along so well!” Michael suddenly burst out chipperly, though it was hard for him to keep up his merry façade when the what he’d said was actually true. “I figured that since you two are so close, you would probably be willing to take an another wonderful responsibility common for two such harmonized individuals.”

Rex looked uneasily over at Weevil, who hadn’t appeared to hear anything over the immersive experience of whatever he was reading, before turning back to Michael and shaking his head, “I think Weevil and I should talk it over first.”

Michael waved his hands dismissively, “Nonsense! Adding a new member into a happy family is always a wonderful surprise!”

Rex yelped, “I think I yer drift, Mike! But trust me we aren’t ready for that!” 

Michael was thoroughly enjoying deceiving his victim, but he knew it was best not to let them agonize for too long and get to the main attraction as fast as possible, “Hand me your stuffed toy.” The demon commanded, gesturing down at the anteater plush in Rex’s arms. Rex reluctantly gave it up and continued to look on with frightened eyes as Michael called upon the neighborhood assistant, “Janet?” 

The not-lady in question appeared right alongside her owner, “How can I help you?”

“Turn this toy into a real pet.” Michael told her, causing Rex to sigh in relief. With a simple  _ boop  _ sound effect, Janet had transfigured the plush into a living and breathing anteater. 

“Wow!” Rex clapped his hands together excitedly, “Antslayer is soooooo cool!” The brunet threw his arms around his new pet to wrap it in an excitable hug, “Your the best, Mike!”

Michael was a bit surprised none of that commotion was enough to cause Weevil to look up from his book, but he knew it was only a matter of time before the animal caught his attention and all Bad Place was let loose. “I’m sure Weevil will be just as excited to see him as you are.” 

Rex’s happy grin turned upside down almost immediately, nearly causing Michael to burst out laughing on the spot at the sight of his stupid face being filled with dread. Michael didn’t give his victim an opportunity to vocalize his fears, “Well, I guess I’ll leave you to it!” The silver-haired demon chirped as he closed the door to the apartment behind him, careful to wave Janet away as he settled in to watch his plan unfold. 

Rex stood awkwardly at the doorway, one hand stroking Antslayer’s fur while he nervously bit the nails on his other. The brunet turned over to look at the still oblivious Weevil, clearly contemplating whether to hide the animal or come clean right away. Either option would be hilarious, for a plan to be airtight Michael needed to plan for every contingency, and watching to see what the humans would do was almost like a sport for the demon. He was placing his bets on Rex telling Weevil right away, since he knew the brunet was a horrible liar, but he wouldn’t be surprised if the man tried to be sneaky anyway. 

“Hey Weevil?” Rex said, proving Michael’s hypothesis true and securing the demon’s knowledge that he couldn’t be outsmarted by a mere mortal human, “Mike just dropped by an-” His statement was cut off when Weevil looked up and screamed.

“ **When did that** **_monster_ ** **get in here?!** ” Weevil hissed angrily, “Did you get Janet to do that, you backstabbing son of bench?!” 

“I just said, it was Michael!” Rex shot back defensively, “He said he’d thought we’d like a new member of the family…” The brunet tried to force a smile, “At least it’s not a baby?”

Weevil swallowed hard and sighed, trying to repress his anger, “Why didn’t you tell him we didn’t want it?”

“I was going to, but he just booked it!” Rex replied, “So now I guess we’re stuck with it.” 

“No way!” Weevil shouted, storming over to the animal and glaring at it with his angry blue gaze, “Janet!” The neighborhood matrix popped up right next to the couple, “Get rid of this brutish beast!” 

Janet shook her head but retained the same cheery smile as always. Michael was glad he’d managed to kidnap a Good Janet from the Neutral Zone’s Janet Warehouse, because a Bad Janet just couldn’t function in the same persistently eager fashion. It really sold the idea that this was the Good Place all while stimulated Weevil’s constant annoyance at cheerful people. “I’m sorry Weevil, but I can’t poof other residents out of existence.”

Rex didn’t seem to understand that he’d just been roasted, albeit unintentionally, by the confused not-robot, “Since when does an anteater count as a resident?” Weevil would have normally snickered at his companion’s stupidity if not for his current boiling rage, but Michael was perfectly happy to laugh at the idiot in his stead. 

Weevil practically snarled at the enby in front of him as he pointed damningly at the animal, “Get rid of the anteater, Janet!”

“No!” Rex shouted, “Please, don’t kill him!” 

“Are you kidding me?” Weevil turned to snap at his friend, “You said you didn’t want this thing around either! What’s with the sudden change of heart?!”

“I rather like Antslayer!” Rex answered, putting a protective arm around the beast, “Now that he’s alive, we can’t possibly end his life! That’d be horrible!” The brunet sighed, “I know you hate his guts, but just give him a chance!”

Weevil wrinkled his nose petulantly, “You don’t drive a very hard bargain, you know. What’s to stop me from killing this creature right now even at the cost of your  _ feewing _ ?” The blue-haired man mocking his partner was amusing in its own right, but Michael mainly enjoyed it because of the fight he knew it’d start. As a demon, he absolutely adored the chaos of human arguments. They often had no rhyme or reason to them and just boiled down to two parties throwing poorly thought out illogical opinions and emotionally driven insults at one another until one person either started crying or used violence to shut the other guy up. Of all human activities arguing was definitely one of Michael’s favorites, rivaled only by poorly remaking classic properties and subsequently crushing millions of nostalgic hearts.

Unfortunately for Michael, Rex didn’t take the bait like the demon, implying he was equating Weevil’s response just then to be the same kinds of teasing the two had engaged in on night’s prior and had therefore concluded it wasn’t necessary to take it seriously, “Would you kill an innocent creature?” 

“Maybe I wouldn’t, but  _ he _ would!” Weevil pointed accusingly at the anteater, “He deserves to be put to justice!”

Rex frowned pitifully, staring up pathetically into his partner’s spiteful gaze with glimmering puppy dog eyes, “Spare him, pretty please?” 

Weevil growled in frustration before waving Janet away. Rex perked up significantly and ran over to hug Weevil before the blue-haired man could escape, “Thank you so much! Yer the best, man!” 

Weevil rolled his eyes, “Shut up. Just get this thing out of my sight in whatever way you deem humane.” 

Michael would have punched the wall in frustration if that wouldn’t have given him away to his victim. How could he let this happen?! As much as he hated to admit it, he had underestimated the trust these two had put in each other. He was going to need to push Weevil extra hard in the wrong direction if he was to have any hope of making their whole relationship go south.

A few minutes after Rex had gone off to dispose of Antslayer, Michael had decided to pay a little visit to the sulking Weevil. Knocking on the door and being greeted by the blue-haired man’s pouting face was uniquely gratifying in a way that stuffing hot dogs up people’s butts just wasn’t. Michael had been formulating that emotional pain for humans could be just as agonizing as its physical counterparts for thousands of years during his apprenticeship, and now that he was seeing it in it’s full glory he knew it was true. It was so much more entertaining than decapitating people with sharpened candy canes because it had such a personal twist and required so much creativity on the part of the architect. Michael hoped that after he ironed out the kinks (or rather lack thereof) in Rex and Weevil’s relationship that his neighborhood would be a perfect success, and that demons across the afterlife would exalt him as a hero and immortalize him as a historical innovator. 

“Hello, Weevil.” Michael greeted his victim with a fake smile, “I just wanted to check in on how your getting along with your new pet.” The architect looked around the room and pretended to scan for Rex as if he didn’t already know the paleontologist was gone, “Where’s Rex?” 

“He took it for a walk.” Weevil answered. Michael supposed Weevil thought he was lying, but the silver-haired demon knew Rex would never be able to get rid of the anteater by his volition. If Michael knew the brunet (which seemed likely as he knew every single detail of his miserable life), he was likely feeding the animal frozen yogurt as they spoke. 

Michael tilted his head, “Have you been enjoying its company?”

Weevil sucked in a deep breath, “Of course! Why wouldn’t I? After all, it’s just so…” The dead entomologist fished for the right word, “Neat.” He settled on a fairly weak and underwhelming word, but Michael pretended not to notice the man’s grimace or defeated tone.

“Well that’s just wonderful.” Michael cooed, “I’m glad you and Rex get along so well. I hope your really starting to feel like you truly belong here.” Weevil flinched perfectly in time with the demon’s intentionally phrased words, “By the way, I’ve heard Pavita wanted to talk to you about something in the town square.” Michael had to goad Weevil outside if he had any hope of getting the human to realize Rex wasn’t going to kill the anteater, “I hope it's not too inconvenient, but it sounded really important.” More accurately, he hoped that Pavita was prepared for her speech since he had informed her that it may not be necessary. 

Weevil tried to hide his disgust but was failing miserably, “Sounds great! I’ll get going right away.” The biologist pushed past Michael in a hurry and quickly left the architect in the dust. It was no matter. Michael could catch up to him in no time and watch his plan come to fruition by lurking in the shadows, which conveniently happened to be his favorite place to lurk. 

Weevil tried to look casual as he strolled down the bustling streets of the neighborhood towards the town square, but the discomfort on his face was on full display for the entire congregation of demons pretending to be idle passerbys. Michael could see their fake smiles twisting sadistically as he passed by, and Michael was glad Weevil had never been one to pay attention to other people or else he might have noticed their demonic leering. 

The dead entomophile hadn’t even made it halfway to his destination before he spotted Rex and Janet brushing Antslayer’s fur in between mouthfuls of frozen yogurt.

“What the fork!?” Weevil snapped, instantly grabbing the attention of and subsequently terrifying his soulmate as he stormed over to the table the man and enby were situated at, “I thought you said you were getting rid of it!” 

“I didn’t plan on bringing him back home!” Rex answered defensively, though the way his pupils shifted to the left implied that he was lying, “I just wanted to have some fun with him before I left him on the beach!”

“Yeah, right!” Weevil snorted, “Even if you had never brought him back to the house, you’d still have gone to visit him on the beach everyday!”

Rex’s patience with his fake soulmate seemed to finally be running out, “Why does it matter to ya what I spend my time doing?” 

“What am I supposed to do if your out frolicking with some dildo-faced animal!” Weevil would normally have been satisfied that he could at least say ‘dildo,’ but at this point he was too angry to notice, “Your all I have around here for entertainment!”

“Do you have any idea how selfish yer being?!” Rex snapped back, his voice raising above a speaking tone, “Is that really all ya think of me?” Michael was glad to see Rex finally losing his temper with Weevil, as the man had proved to have annoyingly abnormal amounts of patience for his fake soulmate in previous torture attempts, and for the first time since the introductory day to the neighborhood Michael found himself completely satisfied with the torment he was causing. “To think I thought of ya as a friend!”

“We were never friends!” Weevil growled, causing Rex to break out of his anger for a moment to look genuinely upset, “I’ve barely known you for a week! Do you honestly believe someone who has never had a friend before is capable of making a bond like that in such a short amount of time? Get over yourself!” 

Rex blinked a few times in shock, “I’m the one who needs to get over himself?” The brunet swallowed hard to keep himself from getting worked up again, “Look, I’m sorry for lying to ya. Can we just forget this ever happened?”

Michael knew Weevil would never forget when someone did him wrong and the grudges the man held were one of the most powerful forces the silver-haired demon had ever observed in a mere human. As soon as Michael had seen the dead biologist on his list of souls he knew he needed him to be a part of his neighborhood experiment. “I guess I should have known not to send an idiot to do a Janet’s work.” Weevil turned to Janet and pointed at Antslayer, “Kill it now.”

Rex didn’t have a chance to say anything as the neighborhood assistant gave the animal a swift kick in the stomach and sent it flying into the air. The last anyone saw of it was a small explosion as it hit the surface of the fake sun above. 

The spectacle was enough to gather the attention of all the residents surrounding them, many of whom had been looking at them since they started yelling at each other, and all the two could do was smile awkwardly as everyone began to whisper. Of course they all know the exact context in which the event had occurred, but it was important to perpetuate the lie that nobody expected the two to fight with one another.

Michael rushed out of the shadows to push through the crowd and make his way over to Rex and Weevil, “What was that?!” The demon asked even though he knew the answer, “Did Janet just kick Antslayer into the sun?!” 

Janet waved upon being mentioned, “Weevil asked me to!” She informed the architect with a smile, “So I did!”

Rex looked horrified, “Why did ya do that, Weevil?!”

“I’m s-s-sorry!” Weevil stuttered, his entire body quivering. He was clearly spooked, but whether that was due to guilt or fear of being sent to the Bad Place, Michael couldn’t tell, “I made a mistake!”

“Ya think?!” Rex bit back angrily before trying to calm down, “Seriously though, what the heck?”

Weevil looked over at Michael and the rest of the neighborhood residents and took in a deep breath, “Can you give us a second?” Michael raised an eyebrow but agreed for simplicity’s sake. He could try to make this situation needly complicated, but while that option could add tons of extra suffering it could also lead to bizarre complications that might end in the demon’s secret coming out. “Janet, get us away from here.”

In a second, the two men were gone. Immediately Michael was swarmed by his subordinates and greeted with rapturous cheering, a sharp contrast to the last time he was mobbed by his employees. “That was hilarious!” He heard Gayle laugh, “I never knew emotional manipulation could be so exciting!” Everyone else in the crowd seemed to share a similar opinion, Michael could pick out individual praises and cheers for his work throughout the entire street. He felt a great pride swelling inside his human form’s heart. This was what he had always wanted… everything he had ever dreamed of… it had finally all come together.

As much as Michael wanted to stay like this forever, he knew he had to find Rex and Weevil and make sure things were still running smoothly. He pushed his way through the crowd of adoring fans, his head directing his feet towards the apartment building while his heart pulled him back to soak up more and more praise from his peers. He eventually broke through the surging sea of demons and was able to find himself at his peephole again, but he still wished he’d had the chance to stay behind. Now he understood why humans loved social media so much: the overwhelming feeling of validation presented in one mass was exhilarating and he was already beginning to crave it more.

Weevil was pacing around the room nervously, “What the fork are we supposed to tell Michael when he inevitably asks us about that?!” The entomologist’s voice was even squeakier than usual under the stress of the situation, “He’s got to be putting the pieces together that we don’t belong here!”

Janet was standing in the center of the room and smiling. It didn’t seem to occur to her that the residents were out of place in paradise, which Michael supposed made sense. Sure, he had lied to her about where she was and who he and everybody else was, but it was in her nature to want to serve and protect residents. She didn’t have the capacity to question their actions, all she had to do was make sure their afterlife experience was as pleasant as possible. Plus even if she did have some suspicion about Rex and Weevil’s validity it wasn’t like she could express them: Janets are required to keep all the private information of their neighborhood’s residents confidential. 

Rex was clearly still annoyed at Weevil for blowing their cover and having Janet kick his pet into the sun, but he was trying to keep his aggravation as moderated as possible in order to help find a solution to the immediate problem of getting busted, “Janet?” The not-lady turned her head to look at the human, “Is there anywhere we can go if we don’t want Michael to be able to find us?”

Michael’s blood ran cold upon hearing those words. He couldn’t lose the humans or else his whole operation might end up compromised!

“There exists a Medium Place that is present in a separate realm from the Good Place and the Bad Place.” Janet explained warmly, “I could call the train to get you there!”

Michael reached for the doorknob to stop them, but it was already too late. Janet had teleported the humans to the train station before he could do anything to stop them. Michael was about ready to pull out his hair in frustration. After all of the validation his crew had given him moments before it was going to be back to square one for the architect… he couldn’t allow it. He wasn’t going to let himself to be retired by Shawn, not after he’d created something so uniquely evil. 

Michael had made it down to the train station just in time to catch Rex and Weevil peeking their heads out of the train windows as they began to roll away towards the Medium Place. Some demons clamoured and roared furiously while others stood on gasping, but Rex managed to yell over all of the noise, “Sorry for everything, Mike!”

Then they were gone. All was silent for a hot minute before all the architects began to scream like banshees. 

“Calm down!” Michael shouted over the uproar and the sound of blood pumping through his head, “Everybody  **_QUIET_ ** !” The last word was so enraged and rung out so loudly that everyone in the entire area was able to hear it and do what he had so terrifyingly commanded of them. “There is no need to panic!” Michael yelled, though at this point there was so much sweat pouring down his neck that he was having trouble standing.

Pedro was the first to speak up against his boss, “What do you suppose we do then, smart guy?”

Michael had an answer, but he knew the rest of the demons would dislike it as much as he did, “We’re going to have to call Shawn.”

Everything went haywire as soon as he finished his statement, eternal beings were screaming and flailing their arms around and punching the person next to them and generally causing typical Bad Place chaos across the entire street. It was such a hullabaloo that Michael had to blast his lungs at full force to scream over the riot below, “ **_SILENCE_ ** ! There’s no other option!” Michael tried to reason with his employees over the outrage, but he was pretty sure only a handful of the brawlers were listening and that the ones who were were only doing so in order to criticize whatever point he made, “Shawn can grab a Bad Janet to call a train to the Medium Place and we’ll have the humans back in no time!”

“Yeah, and then we can all get used to having each of our atoms baked over the surface of a billion separate suns!” Marshall spat back, “You really tore us a new one, Michael!”

“What other choice do we have?” Michael cried, “If Shawn makes a visit to check up on the neighborhood's progress and finds us without the victims, there'll be no way out of it! But if we just come clean and get him to give them back, maybe he’ll give us a second chance!”

Nobody was listening to a word Michael said, they were too busy throwing a massive hissy fit to give a care to the architect they were blaming for everything going wrong. At this point, Michael couldn’t blame them. This entire afterlife was his design, so naturally all of its problems were due to his own shortcomings. Dejectedly, Michael slinked away from the rioting crowd to get some peace and quiet in his office, though calling it ‘peace and quiet’ was such a huge stretch he wasn’t sure it was even an appropriate descriptor. It was certainly better then the huge debacle outside, but the tumultuous thoughts formulating in his mind and the miserable sobbing escaping from his mouth made it less than ideal. 

How could everything had fallen apart so quickly in only a week? Was it really that telling of the original design pitch that it had all come crashing down in so short a time? Was it really impossible the get humans to torture each other as effectively as the fire and brimstone the afterlife had used since the dawn of time, or was his failure not due to the concept but the execution? If it was the latter, where did he go wrong? Was it just that he was so worthless and 

unsuitable for the job that he never had any hope of succeeding? If that was true maybe Michael did deserve to be retired.

He really wanted to blame the humans for his downfall, he wanted to shake his fist and curse those insignificant and lowly mortals for their insolence and rip apart their fragile bodies like a ravenous hellhound tears apart its prey, but he just couldn’t stop himself from blaming anyone but himself. He would never get to torture a human again while he burned for all eternity in retirement… and worst of all his legacy would be that of a raving lunatic with a head to big for his body who got what he deserved when his inane scheming fell flat on its face. 

Hours passed before Michael was able to dry up his tears and call Shawn, and even when he did he figured he must look like a mess. The thought of his boss seeing how much this hurt him and making sweeping negative judgements about his character was frightening enough to make Michael want to start crying again, but he knew he couldn’t afford to wait any longer to make the call. He was also aware of how miffed the rest of the architects were going to be when they saw he’d actually gone through and called the boss man himself, but what else was he supposed to do? This was his only option that might possibly save him from being retired, but even then his chances of survival seemed pretty low. 

The architect took in a deep breath and opened up the magical screen that gave him contact to his boss but paused before he could hit the button to call. He could hear something from the other end of the neighborhood…

Michael poked his head out of the window to see the train rolling back into the station, the streets now deserted as the rest of the Bad Place crew had gone off to some remote corner of the neighborhood to throw a rager and possibly conspire against their boss, and the silver-haired architect nearly fell out onto the ground below in shock before racing out to greet the returning group. Janet stepped out first followed by Rex, who was hiding Weevil protectively behind his back. The two humans looked rather solemn while Janet stood on blissfully as always, and Michael tried to force a smile when he ran up to talk to them, “Rex! Weevil!” He gasped, “What on earth did you do that for?!”

Weevil snapped back unexpectedly, “Cut the act, Michael! Don’t play dumb, you must have figured out we don’t belong here by now.”

Michael tried to act surprised, opening his mouth stupidly in an attempt to mimic human shock, “W-what do you mean?” 

“He asked Janet to kick an anteater into the sun!” Rex shouted back in response, “What did ya think we meant?! Did that seem like something a Good Place resident would do to ya?!”

“I just figured everyone has bad days.” Michael was struggling to come up with an excuse, since it felt like his brain was melting from stress and all, “Even the closest of soulmates fight sometimes. I never could have expected  **this** .” That much was true, Michael had never come up with a contingency plan in case the humans ran off to Mindy St. Claire’s private neighborhood, and even though he knew he should be relieved to have the humans back in his omnipotent grasp in the boundaries of the neighborhood he couldn’t help but have a panic attack upon being thrust into such an unexpected situation. “How could there possibly have been a mistake?”

“You tell us!” Weevil snarled, “Your the one who got us into this mess!”

Rex nodded in agreement, “We figured ya’d send us to the Bad Place after seeing us act so obviously not good, so we decided to go somewhere ya couldn’t find us.”

“We would have stayed there forever if Mindy hadn’t kept trying to convince us to have a threesome.” Weevil grumbled grumpily. 

“But that’s not the only reason!” The brunet accompanying him declared, “We couldn’t just sit by and stew in our own guilt forever.” Michael blinked in shock, not quite sure where the dead dinosaur researcher was going, “When we really thought about it, we began to realize that the reason we were supposed to be rotting in hell was because we never fessed up to anything. So I guess what we’re trying to say is… sorry.” Weevil nodded beside his friend in agreement, “Ya can send us down to the Bad Place now, if ya want. We won’t fight it.”

Michael’s head was spinning so fast that he felt like at any moment it might go flying off of his human form and start leaking his eternal essence all over the ground below him. This was the last thing he had expected, which thusly made it the most stressful thing he had ever experienced. He had hand-picked these humans secure in the knowledge they would do nothing but try to help themselves survive… but here they were, turning themselves in and offering to go to the real Bad Place because it's what they knew they deserved. We wanted to ask himself how two terrible people could possibly teach each other to be good, but he knew it was a pointless question to ponder because he already knew the answer. 

They had made a connection with each other, and simply having a real friend during the lowest point in their existence had been enough to teach them a little bit of selflessness. If they had met any point on Earth, Michael reckoned they would have drove each other mad, that the only reason they had been able to bond was because of the very specific circumstances in which they were the only kindred spirit in the midst of a mass of homologous goodie-two-shoes, but even that assumption was one Michael was quickly losing faith in. 

“Were you listening to him?!” Weevil broke through his train of thought with a snarl, “He said to take us to the Bad Place!”

“Are you really sure?” The architect was performing improv at this point in attempt to stall, coming up with any excuse he could think of to keep them around so he could torture them longer, “I mean, think about it! Maybe I can make a case that you offering yourself as tribute to the Bad Place proves you’ve become good people worthy of staying here in paradise!”

Rex sighed sadly, “No offense, Mike, but we’d rather be any place other than here.”

“ ** _Holy_** **_motherforking_** **_shirtballs_**!” Weevil screeched loudly before turning to Rex and beginning to shake his partner’s shoulders furiously, nearly knocking his fake soulmate over under his force, “How could I not see it before?!” The entomologist turned and pointed accusingly at Michael, “ **This is the Bad Place!** ”

Michael was to scared to even think.

“ **_What_ ** ?!” Rex shrieked, “How do ya figure?”

“You said it yourself, the entire time we’ve been here we’ve been  _ completely _ miserable!” Weevil explained dramatically, “We’re surrounded by people better than us to make us feel guilty, we spend every second living in fear for our souls, they sell frozen yogurt instead of ice cream!” Weevil threw his head back to give an empty chuckle, “He can’t send us to the Bad Place because we’re already there!” The small man looked over at Michael and bared his teeth like an angry wild animal, “You tried to trick us, you ashhole! Now tell us who you really are!” Rex looked over at Michael expectantly, as if he still wasn’t completely sure who to believe, while Weevil continued to glare down the much taller man. 

For a second it was quiet enough to hear a pin drop. Michael could hear his heart thumping against his ribcage so loudly he swore even the humans must be able to hear it with their poorly designed ears. 

The tense silence didn’t last for long though, as Michael completely succumbed to the stress of the situation and began to giggle maniacally, causing Rex to step back closer to Weevil as the demon’s demeanor completely changed into something completely sadistic. “You figured it out!” Michael roared with laughter, “Are you forking kidding me?! After all my hard work, you suckfaces have to show up and ruin everything…!”  

The demon continued to laugh as Weevil growled at the architect, “You took one look at us and thought we’d torture one another, is that right?” Weevil’s snarl transformed into a smile when he saw Michael halt his laughing with a flinch, “Looks like we managed to crack your perfectly scientific formula, huh?” Weevil offered his hand to the man beside him, who gladly took it with a trembling yet warm smile decorating his sweating face, “You know what that means, Michael? **We** **won**.” The shorter man smirked and gripped his soulmate’s hand tighter, “We figured your little plan out and now there's nothing you can do to touch us.”

Michael gasped as an epiphany came crashing into his consciousness like a rocket, “Oh, your right! My mistake was pairing you together from the get go!” Both men smirked self satisfactorily at the demon, “Next time, I’ll have to spread you out and make it more of a slow burn.” Michael thought out loud, “Yes, the only reason you were able to bond was because you didn’t think you had any other options… I’ll make sure to rectify that little slip-up in attempt number two.”

“Wait, ‘next time’?!” Rex shouted, clenching Weevil’s hands so tight it looked like he might cut off his friend’s bloodstream, “‘Attempt number two’?! Ya can’t do that to us!”

“Why not?” Michael tilted his head inquisitively, “I’ll just erase your memories and make a few more modifications to the neighborhood and me and the rest of the crew will be all set!”

Weevil turned to his partner, tears clouding his terrified blue eyes, “I’m so sorry!”

“Why are ya apologizing?” Rex said sweetly, taking his free hand to wipe away the tear that was rolling down his partner’s cheek, “It was my idea to come back here. We should’ve just stayed with Mindy forever… even if she was a crackhead and a pervert.”

Michael rolled his eyes, “Will you idiots shut up? I’m going to reboot you now.” Not that the eternal being needed them to stand still to erase their memories, Michael just wanted to watch them suffer for a few moments more before he had to throw away all his progress and start all over again. Michael sighed, this was going to be such a pain to explain to the other demons. 

Weevil unlatched his hand from Rex’s in order to throw his arms around the taller male, “Thanks for sticking with me. Nobody’s ever done that for me before…” The blue-haired male’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment as more tears rolled down his face, “You were a really good fake soulmate.” 

“It’ll be a treat to meet ya again.” Rex laughed, “I promise not to tuck ya in in any of the reboots, either.”

Michael was having trouble not gagging on all the cheesiness of the situation. He was better off just rebooting them now if they weren’t even going to be able to freak out without confiding in one another. “Ew, stop that!” Michael huffed, waving his hands around as if he could separate the two with a mere gesture. He may have been in a position of almost complete power in this afterlife, but even he couldn’t perform telekinetic feats. If he could, he reckoned this entire afterlife would have been a whole lot easier to control. “I can’t even enjoy the last few seconds of my own torture scheme!” The demon grumbled indignantly, “What a rip...”

Rex glared at Michael through lidded violet eyes, taking care to clutch Weevil even closer, “Ya know what, Mike? Hit us with yer best shot!”

Weevil smiled deviously, “We figured your plan out once, and we can do it again. We’ll find each other no matter how many times you reboot us, and one of these days we’ll defeat you once and for all!” 

“Cuz Michael…” Rex opened his mouth as wide as possible to shout with all the power in his lungs, “Ya basi-!”

In a single snap of his fingers, Michael ended it all. 

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that took a lot of mental effort! If there was anything I need to clean up to make the book less rough around the edges, please tell me! I said in the earlier notes this was sort of a passion project, and i want the two properties I love so much to find harmony together. I'll most likely be editting this story in the future either way. Anyway, i hope it turned out to be a decent and enjoyable read despite being rushed! (Also, you should totally watch that anime I vaguely mentioned earlier The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. It's hilarious. If you like Assassination Classroom, you're almost guaranteed to love Saiki K.)


End file.
